


In Time I Will Leave The City (For Now, I Will Stay Alive)

by Wolfthatwrites



Category: BLURRYFACE - Twenty One Pilots (Album), Trench - Twenty One Pilots (Album), Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Trench (Album), Angst, Brainwashing, Caring Josh Dun, Caring Tyler Joseph, DEMA (Twenty One Pilots), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Josh Dun & Tyler Joseph Are Best Friends, Kinda, Major Character Injury, Memory Alteration, Minor Character Death, Sad Josh Dun, Sad Tyler Joseph, Temporary Amnesia, The Bishops of DEMA, dont worry, the Banditos - Freeform, the character is not good, trench, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:13:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22536826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfthatwrites/pseuds/Wolfthatwrites
Summary: Clancy lived a great life in DEMA. He had all he needed within the walls of the city. But when he discovers what lies beyond the walls, he is forced to decide between DEMA, and TRENCH.(BEING REWRITTEN)
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Hometown

**Author's Note:**

> Disclamer: This probably will suck.

Dema.

  
The massive gray cylinders in the center of the city seemed to absorb any light in the sky. Shadows of vultures flew overhead.

  
Clancy looked up. The sky was grey, just like everything else in the city. The bishops said that grey was a pure color. It didn’t matter, as any memory of any other color had long since faded from his mind.

  
The only thing other than grey was red. Crimson red like blood flowing down his face from a cut over his eyebrow. Blood dripping from a broken nose.

  
The bishops said it was necessary to keep him from becoming unclean.

  
Unclean like them.

The Banditos.

  
Clancy shook his head. In the city, nobody was allowed to even think about them. Not that anyone wanted to. In the city, it was quiet and peaceful. It was safe. He didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to leave.

  
Once again, Clancy shook his head. He didn’t have time to ponder the motives behind the rebels’ actions. He was late to worship. Again.

  
Worship took place in the towers in the center of the city. There were nine towers, each run by a different bishop. Each bishop hosted worship for their portion of the city.

  
Clancy’s bishop, Keons, was stoic and sharp. At each worship, he grabbed everyone’s attention like no one else could. Clancy felt that he could speak for everyone when he said that he was honored to live in his region of the city.

  
As Clancy neared the towers, he looked up at the shadows that constantly circled the towers. The shadows were vultures.

  
Occasionally, the vultures would come down from the towers or fly beyond the walls, into the unknown. Sometimes they came back with carcasses, sometimes they came back with objects. But all of it was foreign.

  
Clancy breathed out a sigh of relief as the base of the towers came into view. The door was open, and a few people walked in.

  
The entrance to the tower was a large arched frame with dark, intricately carved doors. As Clancy entered, he looked across the worship hall. Each citizen wore the same color as him. A dark, charcoal grey that marked them as property of their assigned bishop.

  
Clancy stepped into the tower along with the rest of the citizens. Despite the sound of each person’s footsteps down the rows in between the pews, each citizen remained focused on the bishop in front of them. The neon that the bishop held in his grey hands glowed with its white light.

  
Despite the familiarity of the scene before him, it was eerie. The people of Dema were not used to sounds, as they lived in silence, so they were more attentive to noise and details. But now, it was as if they were in a trance. The neon’s glow seemed to lure them all.

  
Clancy made his way to a seat in the middle pews. He too felt himself slip into the hazy trance as he sat down. The only thing he could hear was the constant thump of his heartbeat. Everything faded in and out of view.

  
As it faded out for the last time, everything went dark. There was the rustle of a bishop’s cloak and the clink of neon vials. Then there was perfect silence. The light of neon began to shine.

  
As soon as it had started, it stopped.

  
Clancy came back to himself with a jolt. It was clear some time had passed. He focused on the figure clad in red. The neon glowed brighter than it did before. Besides that, everything was blurry. He blinked a couple times to clear his vision. He could hear the creaking of the door to the worship hall opening.

One by one, the citizens of Dema awoke. And one by one, they all left the hall. Clancy stood and began his walk to his apartment. The sky was dark, and neon lamps lit up the streets. As the crowd of people dispersed, their shadows danced across the concrete walls.

  
Clancy lived on the outskirts of the town, something he had earned through loyalty to the bishops. Unfortunately, he had to walk far to get to worship and back every day.  
Clancy jumped at the sound of flapping behind him. He turned around and jumped.

  
A figure stood in the shadows. The shadow tilted its head at him. Clancy sighed. It was just a vulture.

  
Clancy backed up. The vulture hopped towards him awkwardly. Its eyes glowed in a bright shade compared to the intense red and greyscale of Dema.

  
Clancy backed up slowly. His thoughts were racing. What to do? What to do?

  
With every step back, the vulture moved forward.

  
The yellow of its eyes... Vultures of Dema either had red eyes, or black eyes.

  
This was not of Dema. That much was clear to Clancy.

  
At that realization, Clancy bolted.

  
He didn’t stop till he’d gotten back to his apartment.

  
Clancy shut the door gently, taking care to minimize the noise levels as best he could with his shaking hands. Clancy drew in a shaky breath. He was terrified. Despite the fear and anxiety that grasped him, a part of him wanted to go back. He shoved that part of him down. The only outcome possible would be punishment. He thought back to the steady stream of crimson liquid dripping from his nose and pooling in his mouth.

  
The glow of the neon in the middle of his apartment was calming. Its glow was constant and bright, although the light never really met all corners of the room. The light cast shadows. Each of the nine tubes were a pristine white that would sear your eyes if you looked at it for too long.

  
Clancy sat down at his desk and typed pages on his typewriter, then added it to the growing stack of papers in the drawers at his desk. The old typewriter’s clicks were comforting, in an odd way, and before he knew it, his hands had stopped shaking and pages had been typed.

  
Clancy began to slump over as he found it harder and harder to stay awake. Eventually, after a couple minutes of fighting sleep, he gave in.


	2. Not Today

Cold, neon light flitted through the sheer curtains from the streetlamps outside. The cement floors of Clancy’s room were cold and caked in dust. The walls were the same gray as every other shade in the city. Clancy’s bed sat untouched in its usual spot, pressed up in the corner of his room.

  
Clancy groaned softly before opening his eyes. He lifted his head before wincing at the stiffness in his neck. Clancy rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes before glancing at the alarm clock on his desk. The neon white lettering stared back at him. 4:00. He stood up before wincing as the chair behind him fell to the ground with a crash.

  
The weary man picked up his chair and placed it back the way it was supposed to go. He trudged over to the door to the bathroom. The door creaked as he opened it.

  
Gray tiles decorated the floor of the bathroom. A large, metal basin was set into a concreate tabletop. A mirror was set into the wall above the sink, and above that, a neon bar.  
The old knobs that controlled the water flow creaked as Clancy turned them. He sincerely hoped that no one was awake at this hour.

  
Water splashed out of the faucet in a steady stream. Clancy looked up at the mirror. He grimaced at the face that stared back at him. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was pale.

  
Clancy cupped his hands under the stream of water and splashed his face. He recoiled from the cold. Clancy turned the knobs and the water stopped. He grabbed a towel from a shelf under the sink and dabbed his face dry. Once he was done, he left the bathroom. The door creaked and closed with a click.

  
Clancy sprawled himself across his bed. The silence of DEMA was suffocating at night, when every part of it was barren. The only creatures awake were the vultures that flew overhead, lurking and watching.

  
The silent creatures with piercing red eyes and pitch-black feathers. Like reapers, bringing death with every beat of their wing.

  
The Vulture with the bright eyes and colorful flowers. He wondered what had happened to it. He wondered if it was dead, if one of the red-eyed shadows had killed it, or if it soared beyond the confines of DEMA, and out into the unknown that was the beyond.

Clancy shook his head. What was he thinking?

  
Despite the fact that Clancy knew DEMA was the only way, there was still a part of him that wanted to know what the vulture was doing in DEMA and why it had brought those flowers in.

  
Clancy stared at the neon replica of DEMA’s towers. He should report his doubts to his bishop. That’s what the bishops always said to do, and who was Clancy to question what they told him. It wasn’t like he knew any better.

  
Clancy counted the hours until he had to go to work.

* * *

  
The sky was grey, and the wind was cold. Rain threatened to fall. Despite the wretched weather, life in DEMA carried on.

  
Clancy walked through the streets of DEMA. Once his alarm had gone off, he’d thrown on a clean shirt, brushed his teeth, and began his daily commute to work.

  
Clancy looked ahead. The clothing manufacturing entrance was just a set of doors and a staircase leading underground. The doors were held open by the crowd of workers standing outside. Clancy joined the group of people headed inside.

  
Within the doors, there was a staircase leading down. Clancy descended the stone staircase. The hallway echoed with each step. The concrete walls were lit with neon vials, embedded into the wall every five feet.

  
Despite the lack of heating in DEMA, the underground got warmer and warmer as he descended.

  
As Clancy neared the bottom of the stairs, the hall opened up into a room. In the room, a replica of DEMA’s towers, constructed of neon, stood directly in the middle. The neon glowed off the stone brick walls and curved ceiling. The room had multiple stone corridors that diverged from the main, circular room.

  
Clancy made his way around the neon, footsteps echoing. He stopped at a hallway directly next to the stairs.

  
The hallway was lit the same as the stairs and as every other place in DEMA. Every five feet, a neon tube was stuck in the wall. In between every three neon vials, an archway stood, tall and gray, each individual stone brick worn. After about five arches, Clancy made a left.

  
The arch he walked through opened up to a room full of desks in rows. On top of each desk sat a sewing machine.  
Clancy walked to one of the empty desks. A metal sign with a five engraved into it was placed on the front. The fifth desk on the first row.

  
The chair screeched as Clancy moved it. He sat down and pushed the chair back into his desk. He grabbed his pile of sewing and sighed. He was so tired. He regretted not at least trying to fall asleep, even though he knew the outcome would be the same as it was.

  
Clancy’s job was mostly hemming blankets, clothes from other departments, and sometimes, seat covers. Occasionally, he would sew burlap bags, or a button on someone’s clothing would break and he would be the one called to repair it.

  
Clancy didn’t hate his job. It wasn’t terribly hard, and it was something he was good at. He’d picked it up pretty fast after he was re-assigned to a factory job and began training. Although he knew it was one of the easier jobs.

  
He could have been assigned to the farmers, who worked on the outskirts, before the neon graves. Their work was harsh and tedious, and they did it all in the cold, above ground.

  
 _'That,'_ Clancy thought, _'_ _that must be one of the worst jobs in DEMA.'_

  
The fabric under his hands was stiff and warm. it was a simple shade of gray, lighter than most fabrics, but nice. It was gray like the cloud cover in the sky on a cold day. Gray and even, shrouding the land in shadows.

  
The fabric strip was probably going to be a tablecloth, as it was long and coarse. The string he used was dark grey and thin.

  
The whirring hum of the sewing machine along with many others filled the cavern. The machine vibrated under his hands. The pedal squeaked and the machine stuttered as he adjusted his foot on the metal.

  
Soon enough, the tablecloth was finished. It had only needed to be hemmed, so it was a quick job. Clancy set it aside and began work on the next piece.

  
A couple hours later, the lunch bell rang. Clancy finished up the last piece of that morning and then placed it down. He got up and wiped his hands on his shirt. He unplugged his sewing machine and pushed his seat into his desk before walking out of the factory.

  
The chill in the air got more and more intense as he walked up the steps. He shivered. The crowded halls were silent. Clancy pulled his arms around himself as he stepped out into the brisk, cold air.

  
Once Clancy had made it mostly out of the crowd, he booked it to the lunch hall. The wind was cold on his arms, but he didn’t care. After he had ran ahead by a few feet, he paused to catch his breath. There wasn’t much of a need for running in DEMA. The only people who ran daily were those out in the farming districts.

  
After a little walking, the group had finally made it to the lunch hall. The hall was a small, plain building with concrete gray walls and smooth cement floors. Most of the light came from skylights that were just too dirty to truly see out of, but clean enough that they let a little light in. Any other light came from neon pillars that lined the side of the hall.

  
Ancient wooden tables sat in rows in the hall. Benches lined each table, maximizing the amount of seating. The wooden tables and benches had been there for as long as anyone could remember. Most things in DEMA were old.

  
A wall divided a portion of the hall off for food preparation. The walls had windows in them ever other space where people could get their food.

  
Clancy walked through the space in between the tables. He made his way to the windows were a crowd was forming. He slipped through the crowd and grabbed a plate before quickly slipping back out. He stepped away from the crowd with a sigh of relief and sat down at a table, away from most people.

  
Clancy looked at his plate. The same sandwich as usual. He took a couple bites of it before placing it back on his plate. He wasn’t hungry.

  
The clock on the wall read 12:10. Clancy put his head down on the table. There was so much time until worship.

  
Noise could be heard from beyond the kitchen wall. The ingredients for that night’s dinner was being set out. It made sense. Set out the food for dinner before worship, let it defrost, then after worship, begin cooking. Clancy had worked in the kitchens for a while, before the sewing factory. He’d enjoyed it there, but it was only temporary, and he knew that eventually he'd work in sewing.

  
In his time in the kitchens, he’d found many ways to pass the time. Food prep took both practice and patience. Needless to say, he’d spent a lot of time people watching.  
He’d found that the kitchens were a safe haven of sorts to some. The noise and clutter of the kitchens was a nice contrast to the silence of the city. The warmth it radiated was not boiling like the below ground centers, but not freezing like most other places in the city. During free time, many came to the kitchens to enjoy the constant noise and constant warmth.

  
He could definitely understand that.

  
It was lonely and cold at night. He spent many nights wishing that he was in the cafeteria, drowning out his own thoughts. Or that he was in DEMA’s extensive library, studying vialism.

  
Of course, there were limits on what he could access, he was only a citizen, not even an apprentice, and there were books that only a citizen should not be able to access.

  
But then again, there was probably a book that had information on what lie beyond the city. And a book like that must contain something about the vulture.

  
Clancy quickly shut down that train of thought. If there was information on the vulture, it obviously was not information that an average citizen was allowed.  
Clancy glanced at the clock. 12:30. He got up and threw his food away. As he walked out the door, the cold air hit him like a wave.

  
The wind was slightly less intense then it had been that morning. The sky was light gray and overcast. A little light filtered in through the dense clouds.  
Clancy stopped outside of the tower. The ominous shadows circled above. He winced.

  
The big stone archway towered over Clancy. The small lobby was empty. As was the worship hall, save it for a few people. The tall, arched roof stood in a magnificent glory; its ceiling extended on for what seemed like forever. The seats were in curved rows around a single stage.

  
A couple people were scattered across the rows. Neon vials glowed in the dimly lit room. Clancy made his way to a seat in the middle of the room.  
Clancy sat down. Footsteps echoed though the tower as the rest of the district filled in.

  
Little by little, the seats filled up. Soon, most rows were filled with people. Clancy waited with anticipation. Worship would start soon.

  
The tubes of light in the front of the center glowed brightly. They buzzed and glowed intensely. Clancy saw crimson red. The bright, intense color indicated the bishop’s arrival.  
The bishop stood, his cloak billowing out behind him. Gray coal marked his hands, neck and mouth. His eyes glowed red, the light reflecting off of the neon vials.

  
Keons was cold and calculated. He stared into the crowd. Power seemed to emanate off him. The tower was completely silent, except for the bishop’s voice.  
As the bishop spoke of vialism and the dangers of the unknown, everyone in the tower listened with unwavering interest.

  
“In DEMA, we are safe. We are protected. Why would anyone need anything more? We have food, shelter, unity. We are all the same in the end.

  
Leaving DEMA behind would only cause chaos. Because of this, we stay the same.

  
TRENCH is dangerous. The only people out there are traitors and heathens. Those outside of DEMA must be cleansed. That is the only way for them to receive salvation.”

Keons finished his lecture a while later with a flare of the neon and left the stage. Soon after, the district began to file out of the tower. After a good amount of people had left, Clancy got up and began his walk to the factory.

  
Clancy spent the rest of the afternoon in the factory. Around eight, after dinner, Clancy made his way to the worship tower. The sun had barely set, and the sky was a darker gray.

  
By the time worship was over, the sun had set completely. A chill had settled over the city and the neon lights glowed.  
The crowd of citizens walked down to the housing. Clancy fell behind.

  
He looked back at the tower. The vultures circled the tower continuously. He watched the vultures fly away from the tower, beyond the city limits, across the Glorious Vista and over the wall.

  
To his surprise, he found himself looking for the yellow eyed vulture. He shook his head.

  
The vulture is probably dead, He reassured himself, but his reassurances felt devoid.

  
He sighed. He knew where he’d be going that night.

  
Clancy briskly walked to the alley where he’d seen the vulture. The shadows seemed to twist, and the cry of the vultures got louder and louder.  
He shook as he stared down the alley. Blood splatters stained the wall. The flowers lie next to the blood.

  
Clancy’s hands trembled as he reached down. He picked up the flowers and tucked them in his shirt pocket. He turned away and continued on his way.  
With shaking hands, Clancy opened the door to the complex. He walked up the stairs and into his apartment. He paused and stared at the neon glow. The light wasn’t right anymore.

  
 _'Its not like I'm turning away from DEMA, it was just a couple flowers.'_ He reassured himself. 

  
Clancy fell asleep staring at the neon. Its once welcoming light felt like it was taunting him. The flowers felt like they were burning in his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeeze, this took forever to write.
> 
> My school is shut down right now because of Coronavirus. They still have us doing online school though. :/
> 
> You'd think that I'd be more motivated to get this done because of the quarantine and lack of other things to do, but you'd be wrong. I am extremely skilled in the fine art of procrastination. 
> 
> I wrote most of this either before school was shut down or in the unholy hours of the morning so its probably not the best. its mostly just a filler chapter I guess. In the following chapters, more exiting things will happen, so I'm pretty exited to write those. 
> 
> Stay safe!  
> Thanks for your patience!
> 
> See you all in, like, December or something, when I get the motivation to get another chapter done.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
